Measuring exoplanet transits and deriving their properties with differential photometry

Abstract

Detection of extra-solar planets has been an active area of research over the last three decades. As these systems are so far away from Earth, several detection methods have been developed to directly or indirectly confirm the presence of a planetary body, one of which is known as the transit method. As the planet 'transits' between its parent star and the observer, it partially blocks some of the star's starlight, thus a small dip in brightness of the star is observed from Earth. To detect this dip, the star's light curve is obtained via differential photometry. The aim of this project, other than to obtain observational data of selected exoplanet systems, was to create an efficient system to almost entirely automate 3 of the stages of post-observation image analysis. This includes target star recognition in every image of an observation set and all differential photometry and transit calculations. The system was also expected to estimate whether the planet is within the star's habitable zone.